Monday, September 30, 2013

Halloween PEEPS S'mores Trifle

My mail, probably yours as well, consists of bills, junk, a few magazines, more junk, maybe something I ordered, and more bills. Every once in a while something unexpected and fun comes along with the usual daily mail. It's the hope that there might be something fun and exciting in the day's mail that makes me keep an eye out for the mail delivery truck. A couple of days ago I received a box full of Halloween PEEPS in the mail. Now that's what I call fun mail! The nice folks at PEEPS sent me a few of their Halloween themed PEEPS to try. Thanks PEEPS!

In case, if you didn't already know, PEEPS are not just for Easter anymore. Nope they've gone multi-holiday! There are now Halloween and Christmas PEEPS, in addition to the traditional Easter PEEP. No more waiting and entire year for PEEPS to return!

Anyway, I wanted to use my PEEPS in a fun Halloween-ish dessert. With PEEPS being super fun marshmallow treat, I immediately thought of doing s'mores. PEEPS and s'mores, are a perfect match, but I didn't want to melt my PEEPS, I mean look at how cute they are! So I decided to layer the PEEPS in a s'mores trifle. How cute and yummy is that? PEEPS, chocolate, whipped cream...Happy Halloween!

Ok so this doesn't really need a recipe, maybe just an assembly guide! Here's what you'll need and how I put mine together. **The amounts you'll need will depend on the size of your trifle bowl. The one I used was small and only holds 2 quarts. The average trifle bowl will hold more like 4 quarts. Double the amounts below for a larger size trifle. You can go as easy or as homemade as you want with all of the components of the trifle. If you want to make your cake, pudding and whipped cream from scratch. go right ahead. If you want to go super easy, use a cake mix, box of chocolate pudding, and Cool Whip. No judgement here. After all PEEPS are meant to be fun food!

Prepare devil’s food cake mix and chocolate pudding according to the directions on the box or make your favorite recipe.

Once the cake has completely cooled, break it up into large chunks.
In a glass trifle dish or any bowl with straight sides, layer, starting with the crushed graham crackers add a layer of the devil’s food cake chunks, then add a layer chocolate pudding. At this point place the PEEPS against the bowl facing outward around the bowl. Place them very close together so that there aren't too many gaps between the PEEPS. I didn't separate the pumpkin PEEPS, I just took them out of the package and place the whole thing in the bowl together. I added a cat in between each set of the pumpkins, but you can do them anyway you want! Feel free to express your PEEPSonality! Continue layering the trifle with the Cool Whip next. Repeat the layers again ending with Cool Whip on top. Sprinkle the mini marshmallows over the top. I toasted my mini marshmallows with a kitchen blow torch. If you don't have one of these, just leave the marshmallows untoasted. Don't put the trifle bowl under the broiler in your oven!!
Refrigerate until ready to serve. Top with PEEPS ghosts.

Want your trifle in individual servings? Just layer the components of the trifle into small plastic cups and top with each one with a chocolate dipped PEEP!